MIRI: The police here have received two reports lodged by victims of scams in the first two weeks of this year.

State Commercial Crime Investigation Department head Supt Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah when contacted yesterday said the two victims suffered RM10,000 loss in the scams by the notorious “Macau Scam” syndicate.

Meanwhile, Sibu police received 12 reports of Macau scam from Jan 2 to 12. Two victims lost RM21,000 while the others were wise enough not to bow in to the cash demands.

Supt Mustafa said the “Macau Scam” syndicate uses several modus operandi (MO) to con their victims.

Among the MO are Lucky Draw, “Spoofing” or disguise as police officers or officers of government agencies, “Spoofing” as Bank Negara officer or commercial bank for credit cards and kidnap for ransom.

“For lucky draw, victims will receive a call claiming that she or he had won a lucky draw contest amounting to millions of ringgit from a company in Hong Kong and Macau. The caller then gives the victim a contact number is she/he wants to claim the prize.

“If she/he agrees, she/he would need to pay for taxes and insurance by depositing money into certain account to claim the prize. After the money is deposited, the caller could not be reached and the purported prize is never seen,” Mustafa said.

As for spoofing as police officers, Mustafa said victims would receive a phone call from an individual who claims to be a police officer or court officer saying that the victim was involved in illegal activities such as illegal money lender (Ah Long), gangsterism and drug smuggling activities.

The victim would then be asked to transfer some money to an account to avoid his bank account from being frozen by the authority.

“For the third MO which is disguise as Bank Negara officer or Commercial Bank officer, victims will receive a call from an individual who claims to be a bank officer who will tell the victim that she or he had failed to remit her/his credit card payment,” he said.

The caller would then direct the victim to call another officer who disguises as Bank Negara officer who would tell the victim that if she/he want to avoid from being blacklisted or bank account frozen, she/he need to transfer money to an account through e-banking or cash deposit machine. Another method is kidnap for ransom. Mustafa said the victim would receive a call from someone who claimed that her child is kidnapped.

“The caller then asked the victim to transfer the ransom money to an account,” he said.

Mustafa however stressed that there are many other ways to con the victims by telling various stories to convince the victim into believing them and paying them money.

“These people are constantly thinking of ways to con their victims and my advice to the public is to be extra careful and not panic when receiving calls from an unknown individual.

“One must contact the police or their relevant bank for confirmation or advice. They must not return the call and not reveal their account number of credit card information to anyone,” Mustafa added.

He also urged the public who had received scam calls to lodge police report at the nearest police station.